WCML blocked, Lamington viaduct damaged.

[APOLLO]

Just deleted the above post as I'm unsure after a quick look at Euston departures shows evening trains to Carlisle, not Glasgow.

 

What does advanced mean at the end of the above links ?

 

A bit confusing.

 

Brit15

[ColinK]

I think you are looking at trains which have not yet run, so they are showing the original schedule. If you look at what is actually running now, you will see they are not running on the WCML north of Lockerbie.

[The Stationmaster]

Nicely explained, Mike; I wish some people I work with could understand these things. The number of times I've had to explain to people who should know better that 'Degraded Modes' use more resources for less capacity than 'Normal Operation'..

The French are great enthusiasts for Contingency Plans; the problem is that by the time they've found the most appropriate one, events have overtaken them.

You have my sympathy Brian - such people are not unique to your place of employment alas.

 

And yes, SNCF are great ones for contingency plans - all of those which i have seen were extremely intricate and, when things actually did go wrong, were utterly useless as the scenarios they provided for were inevitably different from the problem they needed to solve.  I had the very interesting experience of being invited to an SNCF rétour d'experience meeting (dealing with the impact of snow on LCV Nord and at Gare du Nord as it happens) and it was the first time they had ever invited someone from outside SNCF to such a meeting as they were very averse to their dirty linen being seen in public  and one thing which got a real hammering was the use of a contingency plan which turned out to be useless.  SNCB used to be far more pragmatic and tackled such things basically in the same way as us while I have watched SJ timing people retime trains 'on the hoof' so to speak in the sort of way it might be done by a Control office over here.

[CDOGG David]

This incident has shown yet again the lack of strategic thinking in late 20th and early 21st Century UK. No thought is given to maintaining diversionary routes for emergency use. Reducing the GSW line north of Kilmarnock to single track was lunacy and far from saving money has been an expensive mistake. I believe this is now the only route into Glasgow Central which is not electrified, so two reasons for upgrading the GWS to a modern electrified route. I always think back to the collapse of Penmanshiel Tunnel near Berwick on the ECML in 1979. Within hours, all services were diverted via Carlisle (and the Waverley route had already gone). Two days later, additional trains were running via the WCML and not a bus in sight. The tunnel was abandoned, a new road was built to make space for a new stretch of railway to by-pass the tunnel, and all achieved in five months

 

Part of the problem with providing alternative services is the lack of 'spare' rolling stock as there is not enough for existing services let alone a strategic reserve. Whether Private or Public, a complete change of culture is required from Governments of all complexions. I do feel sorry for those in the industry who do such sterling work to keep the system running under these artificial (ie Government-imposed) restraints.

[newbryford]

I'm no civil engineer, but that looks serious. The stonework has fallen and cracked, one large stone missing. It's the damage you can't see under the river which will concern Network Rail engineers. I suspect extensive sheet piling and pier foundation rebuilding / strengthening will be required, not easy on a fast flowing river in mid winter, with yet more rainfall to come.

 

Network Rail have their work cut out. I'll take a guess at 2 to 3 months.

 

Brit15

 

Looks like they're starting to build a dam around the pier to enable further below water level inspection.

https://mobile.twitter.com/networkrailscot/status/683337306225438722

 

Cheers,

Mick

[ColinK]

Agree completely with CDOGG David.

 

Sooner or later there is going to be another unplanned situation which needs lots of rail replacement coaches in June - this will be a problem as June is the peak season for road coaches - schools still in, end of term school trips, summer excursions and holidays.

[Siberian Snooper]

Local Spotlight news has mentioned the retention of some HST's in shorter formations for use in Devon and Cornwall due to delays in replacement trains. Which trains they are refering too I don't know.

[Gary H]

Local Spotlight news has mentioned the retention of some HST's in shorter formations for use in Devon and Cornwall due to delays in replacement trains. Which trains they are refering too I don't know.

Ah yes, those. That'll be the new  Shinkansen rail buses  IEP's that DaFT are blighting us with .http://www.hitachirail-eu.com/-class-800801-iep_140.html   Abit of a sore point between myself and many others in the industry.

[Guest B Exam]

I wondered that as I saw an Edinburgh Manchester Airport service shown as travelling via the normal route on RTT.

 

Jamie

The TPE ran via the GSW. Thats why it shows "No Reports" At the locations between Glasgow-Carlisle. Formed of Class 185 DMU.

 

As for the Euston-Glasgow, Pined at Carlisle.

[CDOGG David]

Another constraint on the flexibility of the network has been caused by the removal of the few crossovers that did exist. There was panic after the Lambrigg derailment when the solution to faulty pointwork was not to ensure that they were properly maintained but to remove them. Contrast this with Continental Europe where bi-directional running is commonplace. The Swiss Gottard route to Italy I know has up and down crossovers approximately every five kilometres, which can be taken at or near line speed. Doing a 'weave' to enable maintenance to take place is seamless with no noticeable delay.

[jamie92208]

Looks like they're starting to build a dam around the pier to enable further below water level inspection.

https://mobile.twitter.com/networkrailscot/status/683337306225438722

 

Cheers,

Mick

That's right Mick. it looks like a breakwater to create some calmer water for the divers to work in safely.  I suspect that when it comes to actual repairs they will have to drive a sheet steel piled cofferdam that can be pumped out, though that's not going to be easy actually under the viaduct.

 

Jamie

[melmerby]

1S25 Caledonian Sleeper left Euston at 2116 rescheduled via ECML

Went a few miles up the WCML from Euston and then reversed down to the ECML at Copenhagen Jn.

 

At 2345 it's around Peterborough

 

Keith

[Arpster]

Two years ago I went to an event at the Royal Society for the launch of the Brown Review into the previous winter's disruption to the transport network caused by extreme weather (i.e. Dawlish washout and Somerset levels floods, plus lots of trees blown down over the railway). You can see the report here.  There were all kinds of recommendations (better communications, better weather forecasting etc) but the recommendations for the railways essentially boiled down to: raise track heights and lineside equipment above flood water levels, better coordination between "adjacted geographical areas", better monitoring of structures and embankments, cutting down more trees, more flexible contingency planning, and a re-think on the compensation regime for delays.

I was pretty astonished that there was absolutely no mention of the role of the structure of the privatised railway in the delays and disruptions caused. No mention of the lack of diversionary routes, the lack of spare rolling stock, the lack of available drivers with the correct route knowledge, the fact that there are so few stabling points and drivers often have to be driven (along flooded roads) to get to trains. I put up my hand and asked about this. I was given a look as if I was some Victorian street urchin who'd skulked in off the street and dismissed completely.

 

The lack of recognition from those in power that these problems are exacerbated  by the way the railway is run is deeply troubling to me. The constant push for efficiency and cost savings has stripped away any hint of redundancy left in the system and it is constantly running on the bare bones where the slightest problem is almost impossible to recover from. Introduce a major problem and the whole system collapses like a pack of cards.

[Robert Shrives]

What will be entertaining ( or not) is that ECML is closed for weekend engineering work for next 4 weekends. By plan / rules of route only one can be closed at a time. So will they be suspended... probably too late now to re-time and re-diagram services back to normal.   

 

Old hat now but I recall a similar situation at Welshpool with a viaduct - Reg rail built two temporary platforms and a walk way across the unsued ( but now in use) trackbed  trains shuttled to and fro both sides.  The viaduct founds had been dug out and then work abandoned due to cash cut back - storms washed away sandbag protection and that was that !

 

Good luck to the underwater guys and those involved in the repairs, not only shoring up the bridge but shoring up the, as others have noted, shambolic transport policy we endure as a nation on the horse of private profit... 

Robert 

[melmerby]

As regards diversionary routes, seeing how the Caledonian sleeper had to get to the ECML from Euston, It would be useful if some more links were availble between terminals.

 

North of the Thames there are very few routes where trains leaving one station can use an alternative main route out of London.

There are plenty of interconnexions but these were mainly put in for goods transfer and not passenger services so generally face away from the stations.

 

A few strategically placed chords could really increase the flexibilty between stations.

 

Keith

[Joseph_Pestell]

As regards diversionary routes, seeing how the Caledonian sleeper had to get to the ECML from Euston, It would be useful if some more links were availble between terminals.

 

North of the Thames there are very few routes where trains leaving one station can use an alternative main route out of London.

There are plenty of interconnexions but these were mainly put in for goods transfer and not passenger services so generally face away from the stations.

 

A few strategically placed chords could really increase the flexibilty between stations.

 

Keith

 

But building new chords, even single-track, would be very costly in London.

 

One route that would certainly have helped at the moment is ex-MR route from Rugby-Leicester. That should certainly have been kept for occasions such as this.

 

More options will become available with reopening of Oxford/Aylesbury to Bletchley.

[The Stationmaster]

There's some right bloomin' nonsense appearing in this thread yet again.  Stories about crossovers being taken out - well to my knowledge none of that has happened anywhere where the crossovers are properly sited and maintainable; reversible signalling not put in or taken out - at a time when vast swathes of it are being renewed and some more is being introduced.  And then we come to the hoary old chestnuts about diversionary routes - where if anything since NR came into being more has been done to upgrade some than had been the case in the previous 30 - 40 years - and nonsense about Driver's route knowledge (tell me what has changed since BR days, please.

 

In the meanwhile people talk about lines which have been closed for 30 years or more (in some cases nearly 50 years) or which were rationalised over 40 years ago in effort to reduce costs in order to try to keep them open.  All of these decisions were made decades ago, and almost entirely in BR days so they have little or nothing to do with privatisation.  Clearly - already in this thread - there seems to evidence that Virgin have been maintaining knowledge of the GSW route for, one presumes, exactly this sort of event.  Any 'redundancy in the system' vanished a long time ago, some of us spent a lot of time getting shot of some of it - hence the huge sums of money NR has had to spend to increase/restore capacity to deal with traffic growth since (nasty word coming) privatisation for the simple reasons that circumstances have changed totally in the past quarter of a century.

 

Very few chords in the London area have gone in, what, the past 30 years and in fact it looks like what has existed for vary many years was used to get the sleeper over onto the ECML (it would make even more sense to start it from KX but it is no doubt too long).

 

The railway network and capacity it has is what history has given us and it's pointless criticising the present for what was done in the past.  And regrettably - for whatever reason - our country has long had a peacetime history of failing to provide alternatives or diversionary routes and I suspect the simple reason is that the 'general public'  (whoever they might be) are inclined to shout very loudly if their benefits are being reduced or their hospital closed while the money is spent on a railway which is likely to be used once in a blue moon when there is a 'K' in the month.  Growth in rail traffic squeezing capacity is a good reason for expanding capacity and perhaps restoring long closed routes; having the route there or with enhanced infrastructure to be used a couple of times a decade is not.

[Zomboid]

The thing with diversionary routes is that they need to be viable when they're not being used for diversions. That's why they were closed/ rationalised in the first place.

I'm sure NR considers diversionary value when doing work on such routes and builds in whatever makes sense within the available budget, but rebuilding the Waverley route as a diversionary option for the WCML would be a colossal waste of money. There would need to be sufficient traffic from Galashiels, Hawick and the abandoned farmhouses towards Carlisle on a daily basis to justify it. The same goes for the Dartmoor route, if Okehampton and Tavistock can provide the traffic it's worth doing...

[Gerald Henriksen]

I was pretty astonished that there was absolutely no mention of the role of the structure of the privatised railway in the delays and disruptions caused. No mention of the lack of diversionary routes, the lack of spare rolling stock, the lack of available drivers with the correct route knowledge, the fact that there are so few stabling points and drivers often have to be driven (along flooded roads) to get to trains. I put up my hand and asked about this. I was given a look as if I was some Victorian street urchin who'd skulked in off the street and dismissed completely.

 

 

But you seem to be assuming that British Rail wouldn't have continued to evolve/change, and instead would have chosen a point of time and then remained static.

 

I won't say that things would be exactly identical today if British Rail was still around, but the general themes would likely have still existed - things like the ending of LHCS would still have occurred, old equipment would still have been scrapped, etc.

[Robert Shrives]

I have to agree with Station master we are where we are... One little problem with current TOC/ route centric operation is getting stock to other terminals. Pendolino routes into London are Euston and Kings Cross.  long ago 91 and MK4 did the otherway but guess current paperwork slim.  . The natural middle terminal at St P is fully used and the paltry domestic platforms just HST long so no luck to be had. It is getting into other terminals before hitting London that might vex a few in power when this is all over.

 

Yes sleeper far too long for the Cross.

 

Piloting "foreign"  traction is now awkward among TOCs - most will only pilot if crew have traction knowledge as a result single TOC traction prevents help - getting XC voyagers off route now almost impossible depot knowledge is not matched front and back and with upto 6 depots working over routes non universal route knowledge and smart diagramming can given control the odd issue!!!

 

Hopefully IEP might help some of that in the future. Esp bi-mode sets.  

 

The well explained lack of slack within freight operators and the tertiary level spot hire businesses also not a lot of use for long term diversions, and nobody will fund an army of just in "casers." Yes EWS did have a set of crew who had extensive knowledge and learning time built in to keep it valid to allow bolstering depots due new flows or short term changes in flows. After my time so no idea if DBS have kept up the reserve.  

 

Shame the 57/3 delner  thunderbirds were thrown to the four winds at a time like this.. but all down to asset management.  

 

Robert   

[melmerby]

But building new chords, even single-track, would be very costly in London.

I was thinking at locations where it is already railway land.

 

There are several places when lines going to different terminals cross without connexion.

Around Willesden/North Pole/Old Oak (nearly all railway property) there is a mass of intersections but no way of getting to the WCML from Paddington although the ex GWR line can be accessed from Euston

 

I must admit getting to the ECML from Euston without a reversal (as now) would be a challenge.

 

New connexions could open up new route possibilities that TOCs might find interesting.

 

Keith

[melmerby]

Yes sleeper far too long for the Cross.

 

Robert   

When running unhindered by floods etc. it is normally 15 up, with a rated load of 585t

Yesterday it was down by about a third to 385t according to Real Time Trains (maybe 10 or 11) so should have been OK

 

Keith

[caradoc]

The primary diversionary route for the WCML, the GSW, was under BR, singled between Barrhead and Kilmarnock, and between Annan and Gretna Jc. Under the privatised railway much of the first section and all of the second section have been redoubled; Not for diverted trains of course but to cope with additional traffic, but nevertheless extremely useful at the moment. How much money should be spent, and where would it come from, to maintain routes which has as Stationmaster has said would be used one in a blue moon ?

[jamie92208]

The primary diversionary route for the WCML, the GSW, was under BR, singled between Barrhead and Kilmarnock, and between Annan and Gretna Jc. Under the privatised railway much of the first section and all of the second section have been redoubled; Not for diverted trains of course but to cope with additional traffic, but nevertheless extremely useful at the moment. How much money should be spent, and where would it come from, to maintain routes which has as Stationmaster has said would be used one in a blue moon ?

ISTR that the redoubling was to handle the coal traffic from Hunterston to England and the opencast traffic from Ayrshire.  Think it was done at the same time as the S&C was relaid for the same traffic.

 

Jamie

[Buhar]

There's a all the freight traffic to consider too.  The Stobart/DRS/Tesco containers and others take a lot off the roads, plus there's the car transporters, Royal Mail and a lot of engineering movements. The Nithsdale line can't take much, if any of this.